(...) So in an era when high-level politics inevitably turns nasty and personal between combatants, what would a presidential campaign featuring two old friends look like? Would either even run if the other was also in the race?

Daniels is candid: He'd be less inclined to launch a White House bid if Barbour does the same.

"My first inclination would be to help Haley," said Daniels, adding: "It would be unusual [if we both ran]. On every past occasion, we've been teammates."

Asked if the prospect of facing his old pal would make a presidential run less appetizing, Barbour is less uneasy about the idea.

"If I thought we would have some falling out it would, but I really don't think we would have a falling out," said the Mississippian. "I think too much of him."

And Barbour said he's even urged Daniels to get in the race.

"I told him that, even if I run, you ought to run," he recalled. "The public needs more good choices." (...)

Las midterms de 2010 han dejado una nueva estructura de poder en New Hampshire:(...) It's hard to overstate what happened in New Hampshire on election day this past November. If political analysts described the national election results as a Republican tsunami, what happened in the Granite State was of Noah-like proportions.

Both congressional seats flipped from blue to red. The State Senate turned from a 14-10 Democratic advantage to a stunning 19-5 GOP edge. And in the 400-member House of Representatives, Republicans gained a staggering 124 seats — going from a minority to the largest majority the party has ever held.

But perhaps the biggest upheaval may lie not in those ballot-box gains, but in two GOP departures. US Senator Judd Gregg chose not to run for re-election this year, and former governor John H. Sununu announced this month that he will step down as state party chairman.

"New Hampshire politics, for most people's memory, has been two dominant political parties," says James Pindell, WMUR-TV political director. "Not Democrat and Republican, but Sununu and Gregg."

To be sure, nobody expects those two to fade entirely into the background after three decades each as Granite State kingpins. But neither has the power of office behind their persuasion any more.

(...) This convergence of the New Hampshire GOP's sudden surge in power and absence of leadership has set the stage for two epic battles so far, and a third unfolding, between the party establishment and the Tea Party–based conservative outsiders.

The first came in the September US Senate primary, when Gregg's hand-picked successor, Kelly Ayotte, barely squeaked out victory, by fewer than 2000 votes, over outsider choice Ovide LaMontagne.

The conservative outsiders prevailed in round two, however: the choice of new Speaker of the House of Representatives. The huge influx of new, primarily conservative members lifted third-term backbencher Bill O'Brien — formerly of Massachusetts, where in the early 1990s he was law partners with Tom Finneran — to a narrow win over long-time leadership member Gene Chandler for the position.

Now, the third battle is shaping up in the race to succeed Sununu as state party chairman. The establishment, including Sununu himself, is backing Cheshire County Republican Chair Juliana Bergeron. The insurgents, including O'Brien, are behind former gubernatorial candidate and Tea Party organizer Jack Kimball.

(...) New Hampshire Tea Partiers, in the afterglow of their 2010 success, are already looking for a conservative, populist candidate, says Andrew Hemingway, chair of the Republican Liberty Caucus, which endorsed more than 100 of the new Republican House members. "There's already been a shift in attention toward the presidential contest" among those activists, Hemingway says.

The state's establishment Republicans, on the other hand, will be looking for a more mainstream, electable candidate — one they hope will benefit from the large number of independents expected to vote in the Republican primary, with Obama's re-nomination a foregone conclusion

(...) Candidates will also likely find themselves seeking to curry favor with any number of newly emerging conservative voices whose influence has yet to be tested — associations like Hemingway's Republican Liberty Caucus; advocacy groups like Cornerstone Policy Research, led by Kevin Smith; and Web sites like RedHampshire or GraniteGrok.

Of course, Pindell, Arlinghaus, and others acknowledge another possibility: that this cycle will reveal that none of New Hampshire's Republican influencers matter at all. The truth could be that New Hampshire's Republicans get their news and opinions from distant sources — primarily Fox News, talk radio, and national Web sites like NewsMax and RedState.

It might not be necessary, this time around, for candidates to bother sucking up to local pols, or traipsing through house parties and farmers' markets in Coos County — as long as you get favorable treatment from Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Erick Erickson.

That new reality might be why, other than Romney and to some extent Pawlenty, none of the 2012 wannabes made any serious effort to help Granite State Republicans in the 2010 midterms — and why a lot of insiders don't think it did Romney and Pawlenty much good. It might in fact be a whole new ballgame in New Hampshire — one in which the new players aren't even part of the game. (...)

miércoles, 29 de diciembre de 2010

(...) All of this brings me around to the one big GOP prospect I haven't yet mentioned: Mike Huckabee. My instinct has been to dismiss him as a serious contender, partly because I've assumed his appeal is too narrow (religious conservatives in the South and in caucus states), and partly because of all of the pardons he doled out as governor of Arkansas. But it's getting harder to ignore the polls: The same CNN survey that shows Palin's GOP support collapsing also shows -- not for the first time -- that Huckabee is the most popular '12 prospect in the party. 67 percent of Republicans say they are "very" or "somewhat" likely to back him for the nomination. Only 59 percent say the same about Romney. (Plus, 40 percent say they are not likely to back Romney, compared to only 31 percent for Huckabee.) The numbers are much worse for Palin (and for Newt Gingrich for that matter, if you think he's actually running.)

Republicans like Mike Huckabee an awful lot. Granted, it hasn't been that hard for him to burnish his image these past two years, with his syndicated and Fox News television shows. Plus, his fellow Republicans aren't out there attacking him, or drawing attention to those pardons, or to some of the other less-than-conservative pronouncements he's made and positions he's taken over the years. if he does run -- and, unlike with Romney, it isn't yet clear that he will -- Huckabee could see his lofty standing with Republicans erode quickly. But it's also worth acknowledging that, at least for now, he probably deserves the title "front-runner" as much as -- or more than -- any other GOP prospect. (...)

(...) Veteran Democratic pollster Peter Hart cautioned 2012 hopefuls against choosing late-night or a venue like the “The Daily Show” for a presidential announcement, warning it’s a move that could backfire in a sour political climate with a high unemployment rate.

“I'm not a gimmick guy,” said Hart. “I think you want to make an announcement that reflects your seriousness about being president. The ability to find that locale, that backdrop and the crowd that allows you to say it in the right way is important."

For Republicans in 2012, GOP pollster Tyler Harber said highly rated conservative talk shows are an attractive option for candidates, particularly for Huckabee, who hosts one himself.

“You always have a target population in mind that you want to reach when you announce,” he said. “And getting the earned media about how you announce is just as important as what you say.”

Clinton’s YouTube announcement is a prime example. It offered the notoriously careful campaign the sort of control it wanted for the announcement, and the choice of venue was revolutionary at the time.

“Four years ago, just the act of using online technology to do this stuff was in and of itself newsworthy,” said online consultant and founder of Epolitics.com Colin Delany. “Now it's just par for the course.”

A YouTube video in 2012? Probably a snoozer. A Twitter announcement? Much more likely.

Another new possibility, said Harber, is an announcement that employs a live online video feed, which operates like a tele-townhall. A candidate could invite supporters to the live feed and even take questions or interact with preselected online viewers as part of his or her announcement. (...)

(...) One of the Senate's liberal leaders said that, despite receiving pleas to challenge President Obama in 2012, he won't take the bait.

When asked last week about launching a potential campaign against the president, self-described democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said he "ain't gonna do it."

"You will be the first to know: ain't gonna do it," he said during an interview on Vermont's WCAX-TV.

Speculation mounted that Sanders could run against Obama — it's unclear on what party label — after he spent over eight hours this month railing against the president's tax-cut deal on the Senate floor in a speech that came to be known as the "filibernie." (...)

(...) When PPP first polled Florida Republicans in March about who they wanted as their 2012 nominee 52% of them picked Mitt Romney when given the choices of him, Mike Huckabee (who got 21%), and Sarah Palin (who received 18%).

When PPP next asked Florida Republicans about 2012 in July Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul's names were added into the mix and although Romney maintained the lead it wasn't nearly as strong. He was at 31%, followed by Palin and Gingrich at 23%, Huckabee at 15%, and Paul at 6%.

When PPP asked about it in late October even more names were in the pool and Romney's support declined even further. He was down to 28% with Palin at 22%, Huckabee and Gingrich at 15%, and a variety of other Republicans combining for 8%.

Now Romney's lead in Florida is completely gone. The poll we did last week found him at only 21%, behind Huckabee's 23%, with Gingrich at 18%, Palin at 13%, and others combining for a total of 15%.

Why has Romney fallen so far? I think part of the reason he polled so well earlier in the year is that he was the anti-Palin. Palin's favorability numbers with GOP voters in Florida are a good deal worse than they are most places and Romney did well in those earlier surveys as one of the few named alternatives to her. As more response options were provided in later polls the anti-Palin sentiment was diffused across several candidates and Romney's mile wide but inch deep support declined further and further and further to where it is now.

Romney's chances at the Republican nomination really might be contingent on a small pool of candidates running- the more 'reasonable' folks there are in the mix the worse Romney does because he doesn't have a real solid base of support. If there are 5 'competent' folks who have been Governors or Senators running it may be hard for any of them to break out as a strong alternative to Palin should she make the race. (...)

(...) When conservative activist and former presidential candidate Gary Bauer scans the potential 2012 Republican field, not much excites him. "All the obvious frontline names have all the usual pluses and minuses," Mr. Bauer says.

But in considering one candidate, Mr. Bauer sees only qualities that he likes. Indiana Rep. Mike Pence is a military and fiscal hawk who frequently plugs his Christian credentials. To some, he's the potential candidate best able to unite two wings of the Republican Party—its fiscal conservatives and social conservatives.

"He is definitely the guy to watch," says Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, a group that opposes gay marriage and abortion.

(...) "We don't know who the field is," Daniels told reporters at his Statehouse office last week. "We don't know exactly what they'll emphasize and what their depth of conviction and specificity of prescription will be about the problems that are bothering me, specifically the debt iceberg the nation's heading for."

Daniels said it could influence his decision if "somebody really grabs hold and is willing to deal openly and honestly with the American people about what we're up against" — and offers a constructive way to get out. But Daniels said it's too soon to tell whether anybody fits that description. (...)

(...) So far, his star seems as dim as it was when he announced that he would not seek re-election as governor, igniting speculation that he would seek the GOP presidential nomination.

Still, some political experts say Pawlenty is making all the right moves, regardless of whether they are paying off immediately, and that could brighten his chances of breaking into the top tier of potential candidates.

“He’s taking the right steps he needs to take to run a campaign,” said Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. “But when the question is, ‘Why Pawlenty? What’s the base of support that he has that no one else has?’ It’s hard to answer that right now.”

Despite all that he’s done, Pawlenty has a lot more work to do to become competitive, said Allan Lichtman, a presidential scholar at American University in Washington.

(...) “Democrats have had unknowns come out from nowhere … but Republicans have no history of it,” Lichtman said. “The best model is George McGovern. He did it with both a major issue, the (Vietnam) war, and with grassroots organizing.”

In 1972, McGovern of South Dakota won the Democratic Party nomination on an anti-war platform over establishment favorite Ed Muskie of Maine.

The likelihood of Pawlenty being able to pull off a similar coup is virtually nil, Lichtman said.

“Something strange would have to happen for him to get the nomination,” he said.

(...) More pointedly, Politico observed last summer that Pawlenty suffers from “a charisma deficit and (lacks) a clear rationale for why he should be president.”

Jacobs at the University of Minnesota agrees with that assessment. He said about the only way Pawlenty could gain the nomination would be through attrition.

“He’s the candidate who has least offended people, but he can’t generate any interest,” Jacobs said. Pawlenty still could win the nomination, Jacobs added, “if the other candidates continue to self-destruct and he’s the one who’s left standing.” (...)

domingo, 26 de diciembre de 2010

(...) When pressed on whether his crusade against federal government interference and big spending would translate into a 2012 run for the White House, Perry said he hoped someone would run who would stand up and "try to make Washington as inconsequential" as possible.

"Not for me," Perry said. "I happen to think that the governors are where the action is."

When pressed on whether that was a "definite maybe," Perry shot back, "As a definite no, brother." (...)

(...) The White House says President Barack Obama has not made a decision on where to locate his re-election headquarters for 2012, but observers expect the campaign to return to its 2008 base: Chicago.

Such a decision would buck recent history. Every two-term president in the last 30 years — George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan — set up re-election campaign offices near the White House or in suburban Virginia. (...)

(...) Jimmy McMillan, folk hero, internet sensation, and leader of New York political party "The Rent Is Too Damn High," recently announced he has his sights set on the White House.

After being catapulted to fame following a quirky yet impressive performance in the New York gubernatorial debates this fall, McMillan attained rockstar status, winning more than 40,000 votes in this year's New York governor's race. Now he says he's ready to take on President Barack Obama in the quest for higher office.

"If you don't do your job right, I am coming at you," he said, complaining about the president's bailout of General Motors. "I know Barack Obama is an Internet hog. I know he knows that I am out there. But what he hasn't heard yet is that Jimmy McMillan is running for President of the United States of America."

McMillan urged Obama to call him up on the phone and invite him to serve in the administration. That scenario aside, McMillan said he would register as a Republican to avoid a primary challenge from the president, a man that he called "a good-looking young guy" that he admired.

(...) Haley Barbour's comments on race relations in his hometown during the 1960s -- a relatively small part of a terrific Weekly Standard profile on him -- have created a series of negative national headlines for the Mississippi governor and potential 2012 presidential candidate over the past 24 hours.

"I just don't remember it as being that bad," Barbour said of the struggles of the Civil Rights movement. Of the Citizens Council, a prominent pro-segregation group, Barbour said: "Up north they think it was like the KKK. Where I come from it was an organization of town leaders".

The negative headlines quickly followed.

"Haley's Comet: Could remarks on civil rights damage a campaign before it starts," asked ABC News while The Atlantic went with: "Haley Barbour's Macaca Moment?". Perhaps the most damaging of the headlines came from the liberal Talking Points Memo blog, which blared: "Barbour Spokesman: Mississippi Gov. is not racist". (...)

Se ha visto obligado a emitir una respuesta:

(...) "When asked why my hometown in Mississippi did not suffer the same racial violence when I was a young man that accompanied other towns' integration efforts, I accurately said the community leadership wouldn't tolerate it and helped prevent violence there. My point was my town rejected the Ku Klux Klan, but nobody should construe that to mean I think the town leadership were saints, either. Their vehicle, called the 'Citizens Council,' is totally indefensible, as is segregation. It was a difficult and painful era for Mississippi, the rest of the country, and especially African Americans who were persecuted in that time." (...)

(...) Earlier this year, there was a lot of talk about Petraeus running. But then the Army general gave a lot of dull, substantive speeches in which he didn’t say anything about ethanol or the Hawkeye State’s divine right to hold the first-in-the-nation contest. Seems like he prefers Kandahar to Ames.

Rubio, Ryan, and Jindal, respectively the incoming junior senator from Florida, the incoming chairman of the House Budget Committee, and the governor of Louisiana, are all wisely sitting out the presidential contest to concentrate on their to-do lists, though the three golden boys of the GOP are ripe vice-presidential picks.

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush and the current governors of New Jersey, Virginia, and Texas — Christie, McDonnell, and Perry — probably aren’t running, though they all enjoy deep reservoirs of admiration on the right, particularly Christie, whose YouTube videos are passed around like samizdat. Also, there’s growing buzz that Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and a fierce defender of his top-tier contender status, may not run because he’s got a big new contract with Fox News in the works.

DeMint, the South Carolina senator and the Tea Party’s man on the inside, has said he’s not running but acts as if he might be. Meanwhile, Gregg, New Hampshire’s retiring senator, acts likes he’s not running but hasn’t ruled it out. (If he did run as New Hampshire’s favorite son, it would complicate things for Romney.) Pence, the Indiana representative, definitely wants to run but now may switch to the Indiana governorship instead.

Barbour, perhaps the sharpest political operator with a natural Southern constituency in a Southern-dominated party, could be a front-runner (and a hilarious and adept debate opponent for Obama), but his plans remain murky.

(...) Paul’s issues — gutting the Federal Reserve, shrinking government, foreign-policy noninterventionism, drug legalization — are the ripest they’ve ever been in the GOP. But, at 75, that’s just about the only way “ripe” and “Ron Paul” can be used together in a sentence.

Thune will probably discover early that his Senate colleagues’ telling him to run isn’t necessarily a compliment. In many respects, Thune is the GOP version of John Kerry: a candidate with very presidential hair who seems “electable” despite not having done much of anything.

Bolton, the famously mustachioed and gruff former U.N. ambassador (like Gingrich, a colleague of mine at the American Enterprise Institute, where I’m a visiting fellow), is a tireless and brilliant guy, but he’s never run for federal office. Presumably he wants to highlight national-security issues and, I hope, duke it out with Ron Paul.

Cain, the former chief executive of Godfather’s Pizza, is a charismatic superstar on the Tea Party circuit and in many rank-and-file conservative circles. An African-American who likes to joke about his “dark-horse candidacy,” he’s a lot more than merely a sane Alan Keyes. But it’s hard to imagine him amounting to more than an exciting also-ran.

Johnson, the former New Mexico governor and a keynoter at last weekend’s KushCon II, will focus attention on pot legalization. Meanwhile, Santorum, a former senator, will focus attention on Rick Santorum. (...)

lunes, 20 de diciembre de 2010

(...) If Indiana Republican Rep. Mike Pence decides to run for president, he’ll announce his candidacy before the end of January.

A source close to Pence told POLITICO that the conservative congressman still hasn’t decided whether to run for president or if he’ll opt instead for a gubernatorial bid. But sitting Republican Lt. Gov. Becky Skillman’s announcement Monday that she won’t run for governor appears to be pushing Pence toward Indianapolis.

(...) Pence’s decision to step aside from his role in the House Republican Leadership shortly after the November election was widely seen as a signal that he’s interested in higher office. Publicly, his office wasn’t offering any new clues on Monday.

(...) But pressure is mounting on Pence to make a quick decision, in part because Skillman’s exit means the Republican field is wide open—and if Pence steps in to fill the void, he could clear the field. If he waits, Republicans risk a messier primary.

Also working in Pence’s favor: retiring Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh’s announcement earlier this month that he won’t run for governor, a move that made waves in the Pence camp and is significantly affecting his decision-making. (...)

Governors move about in a bubble. From home to car to statehouse to plane, from ribbon-cutting to banquet to car to home, they are cushioned in a space built by bustling aides and scary-looking troopers in buzz cuts and plain clothes. In the bubble the governor is king, pasha of his own status-sphere, a singular figure of unchallengeable importance. There’s no one else quite like him in Helena or Jefferson City or Columbus.

And then the bubble transports him to somewhere like the Republican Governors Association conference, held last month at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront. The bubble encounters other bubbles. Awkwardness and disorientation ensue. At the Hilton’s VIP entrance the black SUVs nosed one another to get closer to the red carpet so the pashas could be disgorged. Troopers eyed other troopers and whispered darkly into cuff links. Advance men fidgeted, as they always do, indifferent to all pashas but their own, trying to pick one governor’s luggage from a great dogpile of gubernatorial luggage. At the elevator banks and escalators, in the lobbies and meeting rooms, it was the same: a collision of status-spheres, a paralyzing standoff.

(...) Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Matt Strawn today announced the Iowa GOP will host the Iowa Straw Poll on August 13, 2011. The Iowa Straw Poll is the critical first test of grassroots support for Republican presidential candidates in the first-in-the-nation caucus state.

Additionally, the Iowa GOP is expanding the Iowa Straw Poll to include a Republican presidential debate on August 11, 2011. Strawn said the Party is partnering with FOX News to host the debate, which will give presidential candidates an opportunity to directly speak to Iowans, as well as the nation, just days before tens of thousands of Iowans cast their straw poll votes.

The Iowa Straw Poll, including the FOX News Ames Straw Poll debate, will take place at the traditional location on the Iowa State University campus in Ames, Iowa. (...)

sábado, 18 de diciembre de 2010

(...) Based on Mitt Romney’s campaign book (quite good if you discard the first 1/3 and the final chapter) – and some of his speeches to business audiences – I think I know what Romney would like to do as president. But faced with opposition, or a rebellion from his base, or some other difficulty: who knows?

I sometimes imagine that Romney approaches politics in the same spirit that the CEO of Darden Restaurants approaches cuisine. Darden owns Olive Garden, Longhorn steakhouses, and Red Lobster among other chains. Now suppose that Darden’s data show a decline in demand for mid-priced steak restaurants and a rising response to Italian family dining. Suppose they convert some of their Longhorn outlets to Olive Gardens. Is that “flip-flopping”? Or is that giving people what they want for their money?

Likewise, the “pro-choice” concept met public demand so long as Romney Inc. was a Boston-based senatorship and governorship-seeking enterprise. But now Romney Inc. is expanding to a national brand, with important new growth opportunities in Iowa and South Carolina. A new concept is accordingly required to serve these new markets. Again: this is not flip-flopping. It is customer service.

You may say: But what does Romney think on the inside? Which of his positions is the “real” Romney? I’d answer that question with another question. Suppose an Olive Garden customer returns to the kitchen a plate of fettuccine alfredo, complaining the pasta is overcooked. What should the manager do? Say “I disagree”? Explain that it’s a core conviction to cook pasta to a certain specified number of minutes and seconds, and if the customer doesn’t like it, she’s welcome to take her patronage elsewhere? No! It doesn’t matter what the manager “really” thinks. What matters is satisfying each and every customer who walks through the door to the very best of the manager’s ability.

(...) 1. The candidate with the clearest message has always won2. The candidate who articulated the clearer vision has always won3. The sunnier candidate with the more optimistic message has always won4. The candidate whose message is best aligned with constituent concerns has always won5. The more charismatic candidate has always won6. The candidate who appeared most comfortable in his skin has always won7. The candidate who uses the most plain-spoken language has almost always won (...)

(...) Marco Rubio, Haley Barbour and Mike Huckabee are the Republican candidates most likely to defeat President Obama in 2012, according to a new analysis released today.

The study assesses the 18 most likely Republican candidates – and President Obama – on the seven traits all winning presidential candidates have had since the beginning of the 24/7 media age in 1980. The 7,500-word series appears on the Mr. Media Training Blog, one of the world’s most visited communications training websites.

“Most pundits analyze a general election by looking at the same old measurements, such as unemployment data, consumer confidence, and early polling,” said Brad Phillips, author of the analysis and a former journalist with ABC News and CNN. “But they always miss a reliable predictor: the more gifted media spokesperson has won every presidential election since the beginning of the 24/7 media age in 1980.”

The grades below reflect how well each candidate is performing in seven specific communications categories:

(...) Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) told a New Hampshire radio station Thursday he's taking a "hard look" at a run for president in 2012 and that there's "a very good possibility" he'll head to the Granite State early next year.

"We're taking a hard look at it," Thune said of a potential 2012 bid. "It's obviously a very big undertaking but, as you know, the Granite State figures prominently into anybody who wants to succeed at that task."

(...) "We don't have visits on the schedule right now, but we're still putting together next year's schedule, and that's a very good possibility," Thune said. "Obviously, the early states and New Hampshire's critically important role in the primary process is something we fully recognize. ... If we decide to move forward, you can expect to see us up there." (...)